Lawrence Morris
Colonel Lawrence J. Morris is a lawyer and an officer in the United States Army. Academic career Morris graduated from Marquette University's law school in 1982. Morris had previously earned a double major at Marquette in Political Science and Journalism. In 1997 Lieutenant Colonel Morris served as the head of the Criminal Law department of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's School, which has full American Bar Association accreditation for its post-juris-doctoral graduate course that confers a Master of Laws degree (or LLM) to its graduates. Like nearly all of his peers who are field grade Army officers on active duty as a Judge Advocate, Col. Morris holds an LLM in Military Law awarded by the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General School on the campus of the University of Virginia. Morris also studied at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, where he earned a Masters of Science in National Security Strategy. Military career From 2005-2006 Morris served as the Staff Judge Advocate to the Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point. In early 2007 Morris was the Chief of the U.S. Army Trial Defense Service, where he was responsible for the work and professional training of all uniformed Army defense attorneys as they represented soldiers accused of crimes under the UCMJ. He also served as a co-founder of the Law and Order Task Force in Iraq and received a Bronze Star for his service. In the fall of 2007 Colonel Morris replaced Colonel Morris Davis as Chief Prosecutor of the Guantanamo military commissions. Davis resigned after a public disagreement with Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann, the Chief Legal Advisor to the Convening Authority for the Office of Military Commissions. Davis had publicly called for Hartmann to resign. In 2002, Morris was the head of the Army’s criminal law branch and was tasked with planning the first prosecution of suspected 9/11 terrorists. According to the Wall Street Journal, back in 2002 “he proposed a high-profile public trial that would lay bare the scope of al Qaeda’s alleged conspiracy while burnishing the ideals of American justice.” His legal advice was disregarded by the Bush administration, which decided to interrogate terrorists in secret—perhaps to gain critical intelligence necessary—to prevent further attacks, rather than seek justice through high profile trials. Ironically, Morris has now been asked to finally conduct the trials. Morris compared the planned military trial of Mohammed and the five other defendants to the post-World War II Nuremberg trials, where Nazi war criminals were prosecuted. Morris said that the tribunals would focus on laying out a comprehensive view of the suspects' connections to terrorism, demonstrating the "sophistication of the Al Qaeda operation" around the world. Morris had been assigned by the Army to begin planning for military commissions following President George W. Bush's November 2001 announcement that the U.S. would try suspected terrorists in special tribunals. Morris said he clashed with administration officials who wanted to restrict the legal rights given to detainees, including the right to defense counsel, the right to confront prosecution witnesses and the right to attend all trial proceedings. Morris had also written an August 2002 memo arguing that the government should open its prosecution of detainees with a group trial of senior Al Qaeda operatives. He said that doing so would expose the full extent of Al Qaeda's crimes and help explain to the world why the military commission system was necessary. Comments on the testimony of the witness known as "OC-1" The Toronto Star identified Morris as the Chief Prosecutor of the Guantanamo military commissions. Michelle Shephard of the Star quoted Morris's comments about the accidental release of unredacted testimony from a witness known as OC-1, prior to a hearing where the legality of Omar Khadr combatant status was to be considered. Excerpts from OC-1's secret testimony seemed to contradict the Prosecution's earlier account that Khadr had been the sole survivor of an aerial bombardment that mortally wounded Green Beret Sergeant Christopher Speer. Morris commented: Accusations of violation of legal ethics On March 17, 2008 lawyers for four Kuwaitis went to court to bar prosecutors from contacting their clients, and accused them of "violating legal ethics". MSNBC reported that Morris claimed he did not need the captive's attorneys permission, because they weren't yet officially the captive's attorneys for charges before the Guantanamo military commissions, because they hadn't yet been charged. MSNBC reported that the Kuwaitis' attorneys had filed a petition claiming Prosecution lawyers had met with their clients, and had warned them that their lawyers were Jewish. MSNBC quoted Matthew MacLean: Announcement of new charges for Mohammed al Qahtani On 18 November 2008 Morris announced that he was filing new charges against Mohammed al Qahtani. mirror The Bush administration acknowledged subjecting Al Qahtani to 58 days of sleep deprivation and other extreme interrogation methods in the fall of 2002, when intelligence officials realized he had tried to travel to the United States in the months preceding al Qaeda's September 11 attacks. Morris's prosecution team had proposed charges against Al Qahtani to Susan Crawford in early 2008. Crawford, the Office of Military Commissions "Convening Authority", has the final say over whether charges are confirmed, and she did not confirm the first set of charges against Al Qahtani. Crawford is not required to explain her decisions, and she did not offer a public explanation for dropping the charges against Al Qahtani. Commentators speculated that the charges were dropped because the after-effects of the extreme interrogation methods had left his mental health too fragile. During his only testimony that has been made public—his testimony before his 2006 Administrative Review Board hearing—Al Qahtani acknowledged confessing to extensive ties to al Qaeda, and the 9-11 hijacking plot, but he claimed all his confessions were from the two months he was being tortured, and he had recanted them at every opportunity since then. When announcing the new charges, Morris stated that the new charges were based on “independent and reliable evidence”. He stated: : Retirement announcement Andy Worthington, the author of the The Guantanamo Files, reported on May 6, 2009, that Lawrence Morris was retiring from active duty, and would be replaced, as Chief Prosecutor, by John Murphy, a Captain in the United States Naval Reserve. The retirement ceremony and party were held on Friday, June 12, 2009. Lawrence will be officially retired on September 1, 2009. References Category:Guantanamo Military Commission Prosecutors Category:Judge Advocate General's Corps, United States Army Category:Living people